Absentia
by MinkeOR
Summary: With the days of his wayward youth long behind him, Jim Hawkins is set to enjoy an assignment to the captaincy of one of the Interstellar Federation's transports for Ambassadors on journeys to the Outer Limits. But when a crossing of the Galaxial Divide goes horribly awry, Jim must confront more than the external forces working against him on a foreign planet.
1. Prologue

It had been a long night.

This was partly a cop-out but really the most expeditious way she could think to convey that sense of time pulling and stretching out until it was so thin you couldn't imagine how it wasn't tearing. That a night could be the same number of hours yet feel so different in how it turned them and pulled them in a completely new direction. Like they had been played with.

So, this was how the dawn found her after that long, somewhat frantic night, with her forehead resting on one hand while she scribbled notes about that night. She knew the urgency of her task because she would need these notes for details to be easily recalled. She made bullets and underlined specifics, writing quickly, trying to capture the minutiae before it faded into wisps that became shifting fluid in her mind.

A sharp knock on the door frame drew a fraction of her attention, just enough for her to raise a finger saying, "just a moment", but not enough to stop her pen. When her thought had finally come to it's conclusion she scanned back over it's recitation on paper and felt a bit of calm when she found it to her liking. That always happened when she could feel prepared going into something. It was what had made her a successful doctor, her ability to spend quiet hours and moments thinking of ways to respond to emergencies and bring order to chaos. It soothed her.

"It's time," the man at the door said, his voice deflated, while he watched her gathering her papers and x-ray films, scans and other images, and trying to hide the fatigue in her limbs. He could see it written all over her, from the tendrils of hair that had slipped out of the bun at the base of her neck that she didn't bother to fix, to the way she moved like being slowed even more by the humid air. That could have just been the heat though, unrelenting as it was pressing down on them at all hours of the day.

Thinking of the heat the man took off his thick glasses and wiped them on the hem of his shirt, a nervous habit, but it did little more than smear around the collected moisture in the fabric instead of cleaning the lenses like he had wanted. He sighed and made a mental note to clean them properly before going to bed later. The woman passed through the door and together they set off down the hallway. Their steps echoing off the tiled walls that had long since started to chip away in disrepair.

At the end of the hall, before the double doors of the exit, the pair paused at the last room where a medpod hummed and clicked with displays and constant readouts monitoring the life inside. The woman went in and scanned the monitors one last time to write down a few numbers. She paused at the viewing window over the head of the pod, putting her hand on it and letting her breath out slowly not realizing the small pressing together of her eyebrows reveals her concern at the precarious situation of the pod's occupant. At least right then, the man inside was stable.

Outside in the bluish, predawn light, they skirted the edge of a cobblestone courtyard, keeping tucked under the eaves of roofs that would cascade torrential downpours during the rainy season and direct water to drains in the small courtyard, kept free of debris surreptitiously to avoid bringing attention to their activities in the small cluster of buildings partially hidden by jungle. The man and the woman made their way towards the last building, where another man sat on the stoop, his head leaning against the wall and his eyes closed finding a few moments of rest. When they approached, the man on the stoop opened his eyes and then rubbed them with the heels of his hands and stood slowly, extending every inch of his six-foot-five frame so it filled the doorway. He was unusually tall for anywhere, especially this planet, where the natives rarely broke six feet.

"Are you both ready?" the man on the stoop asked, knowing the answer but still providing the formality of the question.

The woman and the man with the glasses both nodded. The woman shifting her stack of papers and other materials, while the man tried again to clean his glasses.

"Well, let's get this show underway. No point in delaying the inevitable," the man on the stoop said, stepping aside to let the other two into the building. While the man with the glasses busied himself at a bank of monitors, typing at different stations and adjusting dials while watching a screen displaying a 'Call Status' image, the tall man settled at a table while the woman began laying out her materials opposite him.

The seconds slipped by while the connection to homebase was secured and the trio all said a silent prayer that this debriefing wouldn't take very long as their beds were all calling their names. But they didn't hold out too much hope that they would find rest anytime soon, as the harried face of a the senior ranking officer filled the main communications screen and a smaller window in the corner displayed their video feed that was surely taking up his view. He did not look happy.

But again, it had been one of those long, change-everything-in-the-blink-of-an-eye, kind of nights.


	2. Chapter 1

It had been three weeks since the RLS Endurance had shoved off from its port, leaving with a noticeable absence of pomp and circumstance for its voyage. It departed early in the morning, before the docks had fully come to life, carrying a crew and set of passengers that were somewhat muted that foggy morning while the ship slipped silently into the clouds and out of orbit.

If it wasn't for the strict daily routine of managing the ship, Jim Hawkins knew that he would have lost his mind to the monotony of this voyage. As ship's Captain, there seemed to be a never ending pile of paperwork and documents that demanded his attention, lines that begged for signatures, and crew to be checked in with and steered. Though he was lucky in the crew department, he'd been sailing with many of them for years and took pride in their abilities. It didn't hurt that they viewed him with a degree of respect that wasn't afforded to others, as Jim often through himself into the daily tasks of the ship right alongside even the lowest member of the crew hierarchy. Since he'd had to climb the entire ladder himself, he felt it only right that as their Captain he knew exactly how hard they worked and worked right by them.

It wasn't supposed to be an eventful trip. In fact, the shuttling of an Interstellar Federation Ambassador to a neighboring galaxy for a routine diplomacy trip was, by its very nature, the definition of 'routine'. Courses were chartered along well established trade routes, always within range of station beacons and in full protection of the ages-old treaties that ensured the safety of ships as they traversed sections of space that were once hotbeds of action. But that was before the Federation had brought stability to its member systems and fostered prosperity across galaxies.

This trip was supposed to be quiet. Just another notation and counting up of days in space logged by the crew and a shake-out of the ship before it was sent to dry-dock maintenance for a few months. Nothing out of the ordinary about any facet of the voyage.

Jim knew that should have been his first clue. He should never have let himself become so complacent. So, lackadaisical. So stupid.

This wasn't his first time as Captain of a diplomatic mission, rather he'd taken to being the go-to man for these type of trips because they afforded a level of safety that he thought his wife could live with. She'd always knitted her eyebrows together at the assignments he was given when he'd first made Captain almost a decade ago. While she never said anything out loud, he could see the anger in her eyes every time he had to tell her he was being sent on another trip either to some far flung corner of the Federation map, or on a run that was beset by troubles that needed "resolving". Her frustrations had finally driven him to accepting his current post as what some Captains called glorified babysitting, but still she wasn't satisfied.

It wasn't without the slightest bit of raw bitterness in the pit of his stomach that Jim found himself sitting at the small desk in his Captain's Cabin, staring at the almost mocking blank page of his log. Three weeks into the trip and there should be something to write about. Something more than, "Today, we sailed along the same course, making no major adjustments and encountering no major problems."

Jim sighed, closed his eyes, and let his head tip back for a moment to collect his thoughts. To let any kind of narrative work it's way to the surface about the last few days. He'd reached the end of the allowable gap between log postings, so he really should write something. There was just nothing to report. He would be lying to himself if he said that it didn't bother him now, but there was little he could do now to change that. It made that ache in his stomach all the more acute.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, realizing that for a few moments there he'd remembered her as his wife. Though now the reflexive action of his thumb on the inside of the ring finger on his left hand reminded him of his reality when it felt skin instead of the hard metal of a wedding band. Jim set his mouth in a hard line, trying to push the memories of the last days of his shore leave just before this voyage. The well appointed magistrate's office, the crisp white papers on the table between Jim and his wife. The way the wet ink of her signature shone in the sun, shimmering almost as he inscribed his name on the line below hers, effectively undoing their bond. At least legally.

Before Jim could let himself go over every detail of that afternoon on shore, the small speaker on his wall next to the door crackled slightly before the voice of his first mate came over, calling Jim's attention away from his log. Not without a measure of relief, though.

"Yes, Mr. Riley," Jim answered into the speaker.

"There's something...interesting, popping up on our navigation charts, sir," Riley replied. The mate's small hesitation and use of the word 'interesting' caught Jim a bit but he had already set himself to pulling on his boots again and a thick sweater with Captain's insignia sewn onto the shoulders. Despite his years in space, he still found it chilled him sometimes.

It was a short walk from his cabin to the deck where Jim found his first mate by the bank of monitors that made up their navigation station. The helmsman was sitting at the wheel, his eyes forward so as to keep watch, but every so often they would drift down to where the first mate was studying a map and read-outs of the navigational beacons that gave them their headings. Though navigation had come a long way with the integration of automated navigation and the use of beacons to provide waypoints amongst the stars, but it never hurt to have a keen eye and skilled hand at the console.

"What is it, Mr. Riley?" Jim asked when he'd taken up beside the first mate. But he didn't have to wait for a reply to see what the man had been talking about. The screen displaying the recent and upcoming navigation beacons were displaying a signal that shouldn't be there. Though it was registering on the subalpha level of the signal, embedded beneath the primary frequency of the navigations, it still made Jim nervous. He had reviewed the reports and maps of the areas they would be flying through before they had left port, and it didn't include any active signals in this quadrant of the map.

In this area, they were approaching a planet that had once held a Federation base that had been decommissioned almost a fifty years ago after a bitter civil war had torn across the planet and rebel forces had overthrown the presiding government and taken control of the planet. No longer friendly to the Federation, a tenuous treaty had been forged which included the dissolution of the Federation bases. This meant that there shouldn't have been any navigation beacons, not for the last fifty years at least. Enough had time had gone by since the treaty that any residual signal from the beacons would have passed out of the range as close as they were to the planet. This was highly unusual.

"The beacon, sir," Riley responded, pointing at the signal readout on the display. This planet was cleared a long time ago, sir. There shouldn't be any signal now."

"That is interesting," Jim replied, already starting to run through a mental list of possible scenarios. None of which made him any more comfortable with the situation.

"And there's been no reports of any Federation activity on the planet?" Jim asked even though he already knew the answer.

"No, sir," Riley said.

The two men sat with this shift in their reality and the heightened awareness that it meant they would be running in for however long it took them to get away from the planet with the mysterious beacon. Jim looked up at the sails, spread at a decent 85% of capacity to take advantage of the solar winds but not extended fully so as to draw strain on the gossamer like webbing that caught the energy they used to power the ship. His eyes considered the planet in question, just off their starboard bow, so innocuous in its appearance but Jim knew he should be cautious.

"Well," Jim finally said, "I think it's best if we keep an eye on it and move ourselves past this as soon as possible. Let a little more out of the sails and let's pick up our pace, shall we?"

"Aye, sir," Riley said, his voice betraying some of the relief he must have felt at having a sure course of response. Jim looked at the planet once more, trying desperately to ignore the small feeling of doubt that had come in at the back of his mind. He knew it would plague him until they were well clear of the planet.

He didn't know that he should have heeded more warning. Should have listened to that voice of doubt a little more. But then again, hindsight is always twenty-twenty.


	3. Chapter 2

Communications Specialist, Art Waverly had always considered himself to be a compassionate man. It was part of the reason he'd made the decision to go into the comms division, seeing as how he couldn't rightly bring himself to be the one to make the life or death decisions of the regular enlisted. Those were the kinds of decisions that he just knew he couldn't shoulder. That was better left to men made of stronger stuff than himself and he considered himself fortunate to have come to that realization at the proper time. So it was this desire for compassion and a little bit of mercy that he thought briefly about cutting the transmission feed "accidentally" and rebooting the system to give his companions and himself a few hours of break.

By the looks on his friends' faces, they were in dire need of rest. But he knew that if he let it go now then they'd just have to come back later and it would probably take twice as long. As much as he was hating it right at this moment, he couldn't stand the thought of having to come back later and finish the job.

"All right," the officer on the comms screen said to them one more time, pinching the bridge of his nose so as to gather himself. "Start at the beginning, please."

Across from Waverly at the small table, in the direct line of sight to the cameras at the comms station, was his direct supervisor, Lieutenant Eric Davis. Davis' broad shoulders had a bit of droop to them after the long night but the moment he was given the floor, he squared himself off and cleared his throat. It brought out that look in his eye of being in control of a situation and Waverly settled in to listen, one more time, to the account of the previous night, ready to give his testimony if asked.

"At 0443 yesterday morning we received a distress signal followed by emergency beacon transmissions from the RLS Endurance," Lieutenant Davis said. "We'd received no official flight plans of anyone traversing our sector so we didn't hear the call until 0600 when review of the overnight routine scans was performed. After triangulation, we determined the location of the beacon was on planet, so I led a small group of two enlisted and one local to investigate."

"Who was the local?" the officer on the screen asked.

"Esemeratu Puamau," Davis answered.

"Ese," a woman on Davis' right interjected. "Sir." She seemed to throw in the formality quickly to try and cover her unintentional breach of etiquette. She glanced over at Waverly and he gave her a small smile of support.

"We arrived at the site of the beacon at 1845 local time, only to find that the ship had crash landed," Davis soldered on. "The wreckage was still smoldering and appeared to be deserted. We approached, one person from each direction and did a full ground sweep before boarding. We hailed the ship on the radio as well from our positions on the ground but received no response. Boarding the wreck through a hole in the starboard side, we surveyed deck-by-deck but there was no sign of life."

Davis paused, knowing the way that sentence sat in the hot, thick air of the tiny room. Art noted especially the way the woman beside him had stiffened when he'd said it.

"When we got to the main deck we swept from the bow to the stern. As we progressed, we noticed that there appeared to be something affixed to the wheel. Upon closer examination it was discovered that it was a survivor. He'd been beaten and lashed to the wheel, presumably left to die. After recovering what we could of the ship's records from the data ports on the wheel and navigational stations, we took custody of the survivor and brought him back to the base for medical attention."

Davis turned to the woman, his signal that it was her turn. She leaned forward in her chair with her eyes cast over her notes, then after a quick glance at the screen she began.

"Tavi Eriksson, Interim Medical Officer," she said clearly. "Lieutenant Davis and company arrived at base operations last night at 2215, bringing with them the lone survivor from the Endurance. He presented with severe trauma to his person, including but not limited to: burns extending over most of the lower half of his body, a broken right leg, broken pelvis, broken wrist, six broken and bruised ribs, and countless lacerations and contusions over the entirety of his person.

"He was cared for during transit by Ese, and when they arrived back here it was touch and go for most of the night. We performed a set of x-rays and scans to make sure there was no internal bleeding and were fortunate that he didn't sustain any major internal trauma."

"No _major internal trauma_?" the officer onscreen interrupted. "What does that mean."

Tavi paused, wondering briefly if it was worth trying to be sarcastic. _No major internal trauma meant he was god damn lucky, that's what,_ she thought to herself.

"None of his major organs were damaged, Sir," she said. "However, we did need to surgically set the broken limbs and stabilize his pelvis. That took up most of the night." Since the answer seemed to satisfy the officer she moved on. "After surgery, we were able to stabilize him in a medically induced coma and get him into the med pod to keep him in isolation for a while."

"How long do you think he'll be in there?"

"It's hard to say, but I think at least a week," Tavi said. She paused, almost like she was adding it all up in her head again before making a more definite prediction of the patient's future. "We'll bring him back out of the coma when his burns have had a chance to do some healing and his body has stabilized."

The officer on the screen let his eyes slide closed and the trio watched him take a long breath in a release it very slowly. The entire conversation was in his hands now and they were left waiting for him to take it in whatever direction. This didn't sit well with Davis though, who leaned forward in his chair and cleared his throat, causing the officer on the screen to give a small jolt.

"Sir," Davis began, and Art and Tavi both looked at him with surprise. Davis' tone of voice was careful and calculated because he knew it required treading with the utmost respect if they were going to get any information out of the senior officer

"With all due respect," he continued. "Specialist Waverly has been combing through the data logs of the Endurance and his preliminary scans haven't turned up any official documentation regarding their reason for being out in this sector, other than what has been logged as a 'routine transit of the sector while en route'. If this is the case, why weren't we informed that they would be near so we could go dark?"

Waverly glanced at Tavi who was glancing nervously between Davis and the screen. Davis, for his part, kept his own gaze fixed on the screen and waited with projected patience and calm. The mask he kept his features in betrayed no emotion other than slight interest in having his question answered. It was perfect.

The silence that descended on the room after the question was posed stretched on...and on...until Waverly had to look back over his displays and make sure that he hadn't accidentally lost the connection. It got so that it seemed like even the air stood still, that all their collective breath was held while they waited for any kind of response.

"What you need to know," the officer finally said, his words measured but barely concealing the frustration behind them. "Is that the Endurance was dispatched on Federation business. The purpose of its trip is classified."

"Sir," Davis replied. "What of the crew and potential passengers? There was no trace of anyone else at the crash site. This man couldn't have crewed the clipper on his own, leaving me to believe that there are Federation officials and spacers still out there who need our help. What do we do about them?"

"Lieutenant," the officer snapped, forgetting any presumption of decorum. "Do not presume to think that you know anything about the flight of the Endurance other than what I have told you. Regardless of what you might believe happened regarding the circumstances of the Endurance's presence in your sector, you will accept my explanation as the only facts that you need to know at this time."

No one moved, no one dared at the dressing down of Davis by the officer. For his part, Davis kept his cool, barely even letting a flush color his cheeks. Tavi looked like she was going to hit the roof but kept herself in her chair, though her eyebrows had almost disappeared into her hairline from shock. Waverly couldn't help the way his mouth dropped open, unseen by the others at his console.

"Now," the officer continued. "We will be sending an envoy to your location to bring the survivor back to Homebase once he is medically able to make the trip. I am to be kept up to date of any changes in his condition. You will notify us once he makes steady progress. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," Davis answered succinctly.

"Good. We will speak again soon." And with a final salute, the officer disappeared from the screen and the transmission was ended. Tavi sat back in her chair and looked between Davis and Waverly, shaking her head slightly at the conversation that had just taken place.

"Well," Waverly said, finally breaking the silence. "That was a load of bullshit if I do say so myself."

Davis actually smiled and Tavi let out a small bark of laughter.

"Sir," Waverly said, addressing Davis who had covered his face with his hands and was taking deep breaths, probably to keep himself from screaming. "What do we do now?"

"Well," Davis said slowly, letting his hands slide down until they were resting on the table. "We wait for our patient to wake up. I mean, it could be awhile before he's ready for travel, right Tavi?"

"Hard to say," she answered. "You never quite know with these things."

"Let's just see how long we can keep it that way," Davis replied. That's when Tavi's mouth slowly extended into a small smile and Waverly knew that they were going off grid on this one. But that was okay. The three of them worked better that way at the end of the day.


End file.
